


Tradition

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Ambivalence Toward Religion, Catholicism, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21960046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: It's time to leave the past behind and create some new holiday traditions.
Relationships: Tony Balerdi/Adam Jones
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	Tradition

**Author's Note:**

> For Jake - Merry Christmas <3

“Time’s not going to go any faster just ‘cause you keep staring at your watch,” Adam says at last, the third time he finds Tony checking the time at the pass. He slides the garnished plates across the counter and settles on his elbows, twinkling up at the  _ maitre d’ _ with a teasing smile. “Got somewhere you’d rather be?”

He’s only joking -- mostly.

It’s the dinner service on Christmas Eve, every one of them would rather be somewhere else. But Tony’s been wearing an anxious little crease between his eyebrows all afternoon, his jaw tightening with impending doom whenever he’d assumed Adam wasn’t looking.

A sigh.

“Yes and no” Tony says, and it’s his face that damns him. 

Adam knows this face too well, reads the reticence in the pout of his lower lip and the tired resolve in the tightness of his eyes like an open book. He has only to raise his eyebrows at Tony, silently prompting, to get his answer.

“ _ Misa de Gallo _ .”

The chicken -- what? There are still plates that need inspection and Adam draws a neat comma of sauce beside an appetizer when he asks “ _ en Inglés _ ?”

“Midnight Mass.” Tony casts him a sheepish look from beneath his eyelashes. “Really, it is a ten o’clock mass now -- courtesy of the Pope.”

“Kind of him.”

Immediately defensive, Tony looks him up and down and demands “what’s the face?”

“No face.” Adam goes back to arranging garnishes on the waiting plates, carefully nonchalant as he straightens a sprig of rosemary. And then, because he can’t help but be  _ curious _ , he concedes with a shrug: “little bit of a surprised face, maybe -- I didn’t realize you were religious.”

They’ve only been in a proper relationship for a year, though when Adam tallies it up he’s known Tony almost half his life. Is this a conversation they should have had, somewhere along the way? He might spontaneously combust if he sets foot inside a church, but -- is he supposed to offer to go with Tony? 

Tony fidgets with his cufflinks, twists the corner of his mouth into an embarrassed, faintly amused grimace. “I am a very,  _ very _ lapsed Catholic.” Even that feels too generous, but Tony Balerdi is not about to rehash his distaste for the Catholic Church in the middle of their kitchen with the  _ commis _ looking on. “My father, though… When I took the position here as  _ maitre d’ _ , he was pleased to have me accompany him to the service at St. James’s each Sunday.”

Adam can picture it all too well; ever the dutiful son, desperate to please, Tony would have folded up the resentment and crumpled it deep inside himself to sit through the hymns and the homilies in the hopes that he might earn his father’s respect.

“When  _ Papa  _ became too sick to attend, I continued going on his behalf.” In the six months since his father’s burial, Tony has let himself falter -- has found more and more excuses to avoid attendance. But it is Christmas Eve and he finds himself staring down the prospect with a fresh despair. “Now -- I don’t know. It’s just a tradition.”

There’s a significant difference between  _ tradition _ and  _ obligation _ in Adam’s opinion, but there is also a time and a place for questioning your boyfriend’s methods of grieving and Adam decides that tonight is not that time.

“Okay.” 

He signals Yanna -- hovering uncertainly beyond Tony’s shoulder -- with a look, holding up four fingers to indicate the destination of the waiting plates.

“‘Okay’?” Tony echoes with a dubious look.

Favoring him with a tender smile, all understanding and affection, Adam wipes his hands on the side towel looped through his apron and catches Tony’s chin in the crook of his thumb. “Say hello to the big man upstairs for me” he asks, stealing a kiss. “You’re gonna be late.”

The last hour of service drags by without incident and, with both Tony and Kaitlin gone, Adam double-checks the day’s numbers when the last of the waitstaff are tipped out just before eleven. He does the counts half as fast as Tony, careful to ensure it’s all correct, and sends the rest of the kitchen staff home, humming Christmas carols to himself as he finishes the methodical breakdown of the Langham’s kitchen for the night.

His Christmases have always been lonely -- a childhood spent in a different home every year, passed from one relative to the next, always among a different collection of relative strangers. Before the coke and the booze, though, there had been a few constants; packets of powdered hot chocolate and his grandmother’s gritty cinnamon spice cookies.

Adam turns the burner back on.

St. James’s Church is only a ten minute walk from the restaurant and, at five minutes to midnight, Adam is loitering on the street outside, shuffling the warmth of the plate and travel mug between his gloved hands and stamping his boots on the sidewalk. In spite of himself, he worries. A quick Google search had claimed that Midnight Mass lasted about two hours, but is he late? Is he even at the right church? Did Tony go home instead? 

As if in answer, the doors open to spill the pious out into the street, bundled up and formless in their coats and scarves, breathing clouds of ice that catch the moonlight. He picks Tony out among the vague shapes immediately, with the collar of his pea coat turned up and his hands jammed into his pockets. 

Preoccupied, he nearly walks right past Adam who whistles low and calls a soft “hey stranger.”

It is gratifying, in a way Adam can’t quite explain, to see the way Tony lights up -- the warmth of his umber eyes and the elated way his entire face smiles. Drawn together like magnets, Tony tucks himself automatically into the space against Adam’s side and stretches up to kiss his cold cheek. “What are you doing here?” he asks, half-dazzled and breathless in the chill. “You didn’t have to --”

“I know.” Adam cuts him off, shifts to tuck Tony that much closer. “I know; but look, I’ve got Christmas cookies and what might pass for hot cocoa.” And before Tony can protest, he pushes the thermos into his hands, smiling so widely his frozen face might crack. “Maybe it’s time we come up with some new Christmas traditions?”

In all his life, no one has ever looked at Adam Jones the way that Tony looks at him -- so full of love that Adam can  _ feel _ it radiating from him.

“You know what?” Tony hums. “Maybe it is.”


End file.
